Happy Autistiversary! Reflecting on Two Years Since my Autism Diagnosis

On October 16th, it’ll be two years since I realized I was autistic. To be clear, it was another few months before I had an official diagnosis, but this was the day when it clicked, when I learned that there was something diagnosably different about me. 

If you’ve done the math, you’ll learn that I was diagnosed during 2020, and many of that year’s events played a part in the mental struggles leading up to my eventual diagnosis. During that year, I’d been dealing with a lot of anxiety and depression, along with some other things that I couldn’t quite explain. Overall, it felt like my brain was attacking me, and I didn’t know how to make it stop. For a while, I actually contemplated having OCD until autism was brought up as a serious suggestion. 

It wasn’t until my mom mentioned watching a TedTalk about Masking behaviors in autistic women that anyone thought that label might apply to me. My two younger siblings were already diagnosed through the school system at this point (also later than average), and after watching this video, she recommended it to me and said some of it sounded a lot like me. So I did what any reasonable person would do and spent the entire weekend researching anything and everything related to autism, and I came to that same conclusion on October 16th, two years ago. 

Since then, a lot has changed, and mostly for the better. Once I understood that much of my brain “attacking me” was the result of meltdowns and shutdowns from ignoring my needs, whether sensory or socially, I learned to recognize my own limits. I was able to give myself grace when I didn’t meet all of my own perfectionist standards, and I learned to accept myself for who God made me to be. I learned that bringing earplugs to loud events could dramatically decrease my anxiety levels, and that stimming (self-stimulatory behaviors) could essentially put my anxiety on pause in some scenarios. After realizing I was autistic, I found a toolbox full of veritable coping mechanisms, and much of my mental health became more manageable now that I knew more about how I processed the world. For this reason, my autism self-diagnosis was overwhelmingly positive. 

Of course, I did end up going through the process of an official diagnosis after this, because official diagnoses mean academic accommodations, scholarships and the like. I was lucky enough that someone in my area did adult diagnoses, and that they weren’t overly opinionated about whether adult Hispanic women could be autistic. For me, the process took about three months, which is pretty amazing, since I know there are places where it’ll take years. Just after I was diagnosed, the psychologist I saw actually left, so my two siblings, who were diagnosed through the school system but not through medical means, are still on a waiting list, and have been for a while. 

Even though the process was relatively short for me, the waiting period was nerve-wracking. What if I was wrong? What if the psychologist thought I wasn’t “autistic enough” to be diagnosed? What if I wasted time and money only to end up where I’d already been for the past year? Thankfully, at the end of those months, I was mailed a Manila envelope with paperwork for a Level one autism diagnosis, along with a few website printouts I could have googled myself. The clinic didn’t really do much to explain more about autism outside of my paperwork, which I read and reread, but thankfully, I’ve always been far too curious for my own good, and google is a great teacher if you know how to use it. 

Many of the links in my “Autism resource masterlist of doom” came from my research during this time. I got tired of running into “advice for parents of children suffering from autism,” so I kept track of the good resources so I wouldn’t have to wade through the terrible ones every single time. 

When I was working on this post, I ran into this issue again when researching if there was a word for an autism diagnosis anniversary, but most of the results were things like “The first anniversary of Our autism diagnosis” by self-proclaimed “parents of autism,” or general diagnosis days. 

Personally, I like the sound of “Autistiversary,” so feel free to use this term as well! I thought that by giving it its own name, I’d have something fun to share with other autistic people who gained a lot from their autism diagnosis. It’s a frameshift for everyone, but I feel like the tragedy rhetoric is over-popularized, so hopefully this term can be used to share that there are some positives to an autism diagnosis!

You might be wondering, if it’s an anniversary of my diagnosis, why not pick the day when I was actually diagnosed? And the reasoning is in two parts. One: the diagnosis process was long and drawn out, and the day I knew for certain that I’d receive a diagnosis was about a week before I received the official paperwork in the mail, and it wasn’t quite as significant to me as realizing it for myself. Two: diagnosis is often impossible for some people, whether because of the costs (a couple thousand bucks in some places), the time it takes to get through the diagnosis process, or because some doctors are misinformed about the nature of autism, and won’t do diagnostic referrals for adults, women, or racial/ethnic minorities. Thankfully, I didn’t have to look like Sheldon Cooper to get my diagnosis, but this can be a reality for many people, and this is part of why my Autistiversary is when I realized I was autistic, not when I got the paperwork confirming it. This way, all autistic people can celebrate their Autistiversary, not just those with official diagnoses.

As for how to go about celebrating, I have a few suggestions, but it’s up to each person to decide for themselves. 

Here is my list for what I plan to do on my own Autistiversary:

1. Eat a favorite meal. For myself, I plan to eat out and treat myself a little bit.
2. Show autistic pride. I have a neurodiversity t-shirt, and I’ll definitely be wearing it that day.
3. Spend time engaging in self-care. This will probably involve an adult coloring book and spending time with my cat.
4. Stim toy time! I definitely plan to check out Walmart’s toy section for a new fidget.
5. Sensory friendly movie! Every other weekend, my local movie theater does a sensory friendly movie showing and I’ve never been, but I’ve always wanted to try it out. 
6. Share with at least one person the importance of this day. For me, that’s what this blog is for, but I might end up mentioning it to someone else as well.

Who knows if I’ll actually end up doing all these things, but the main idea, to celebrate this day of self-discovery, will definitely happen! To anyone else out there, Happy Autistiversary, and I hope you are doing better with this label than you were before it! Congratulations, and welcome to the neurodiversity family!

If you celebrated your own Autistiversary, feel free to share below!